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FormForAll – Sestina

Today I would like to introduce my friend, Matt Quinn, known to many of you as poemblaze, his twitter handle; and thank him for hosting today. He is giving us an introduction to a longer poem form, sestina; a form that can yield satisfactory results especially for story telling or works that need more detail.

I am offering a Mr. Linky as I know many of you may have sestinas you have already written and would like to offer. But I believe I will offer the topic again in a month or so for those of you who are trying it for the first time. We can talk about some variations then. It often takes a little time for sestinas to become fully realized. Thanks, Gay

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Sestinas are a poetic tour-de-force which takes skill to create and a subtle ear for the sound of language to keep from seeming contrived or stilted.

The sestina repeats the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, and then ends in a three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though traditionally a sestina is set in iambic pentameter. The form is as follows: each number indicating the stanza and the letters representing end-words of each line in the stanza:

The envoi, some call it the tornada, must also include the remaining three end-words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition, a sort of self-rhyme.
Another element of a successful sestina is choice of the end words. The most successful sestinas usually employ simple words which can be used with different meanings or in different contexts. For example, “earth” can mean the planet or soil or be a stand in for the inhabitants of the planet. Being able to reintroduce each word with a different shade of meaning helps keep the poem from sounding repetitive.

As to the sestina’s history, Arnaut Daniel of Southeastern France is said to have invented the form in the 12th Century. Both Dante and Petrarch pursued the sestina in Italy, holding Daniel in great respect. Over time the sestina lost popularity but saw a great resurgence in the 20th Century, which continues.
“Sestina: Altaforte” by Ezra Pound, “Mantis” by Louis Zukofsky, “Sestina” and “A Miracle for Breakfast” by Elizabeth Bishop, “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape” by John Ashbery, “Paysage Moralise” by W.H. Auden, “Toward Autumn” by Marilyn Hacker, and “Sestina: Bob” by Jonah Winter are all excellent examples to compare and contrast. Some hold strictly to iambic pentameter, others are more free. The character in Pound’s poem propounds the merits of war and Ashbery plays with Popeye cartoon characters. Despite its structural limitations, this shows how diverse a range of topics and of approach one can take to the sestina. I suggest reading all of these to get a sense of the possibilities of the form.

Others can judge how well it achieves as a poem, but this is the sestina I’m most content with having written. I also don’t have to worry about copyright issues in sharing it.

Strata Original Work (c) Tina Horenkamp Simonton 2003

STRATA

Dark soil lies bare. Plow furrows disgorge stone
tools—arrowheads lashed upon shafts to spring
from bow to bird, grounded in dry leaf bed
of forest later felled and left a field.
The land subdued, nothing remains to earth
but what we, reaping, leave in our long wake.

Chert, flint, and onyx: ancient voices wake
to my touch; smooth, cool language locked in stone.
Layers of time stirred, overturned; the earth
has no peace. Gnawing wind, relentless spring
rains, the plow, disc and harrow strip this field
of life. It erodes, dwindles down to bed-

rock. Distant day shall see the ocean bed
unearthed. Mollusks, anemone shall wake
from ages’ slumber. Fish shall dart this field
through blue breeze as cold sea currents. Though stone
insinuates their forms, the liquid spring
shall swirl them loose, returned from deepest earth

to dance their rainbow flash or breathe mute earth
tones, sea sponge blending with the sand. Their bed
disturbed, the dead rise up. Key to clock spring,
all begins anew. The funeral, wake
and hearse which send us sleeping under stone
are blind to stirrings which scatter afield

Arrowhead, bone knife, antler, some lost spring
day, blood draining from neck, thrashing, the field
of vision drawn to a point. Still. Then wake
to April anew, grazing the same earth
fed grass, a walking cloud real as stone.
At midday he rests in saucered soil bed.

As water from the stone each self shall spring
up from its bed and live its given field.
We walk earth with the ages all awake.

I tried to use simple words at the end of each line, words that wouldn’t demand attention, so the lines would seem more natural. Also, I used words that could hold multiple meanings and be used in different ways. I did stretch the form at a couple points, using the bed- / rock break. My intent there was to show the life forms in the bedrock breaking loose, visually. Also the very last word in the poem “awake” is not “wake” but near enough I risked the break from form.

Since it is, if employing the traditional iambic pentameter, a longer form than some others, it is a chance to explore broader themes and the repetition of words can be a help, keeping the writer from straying too far from the topic at hand. Reducing the number of syllables per line makes the poem more of a challenge, because the fewer the words, the more those repeated end words stand out.

Here are a few basic suggestions when starting out on a sestina. Use concrete nouns and active verbs as your six repeated words. If the words seem to be driving the poem instead of an idea driving the words, you may need to start from scratch. Some find it helpful to list the words in their proper order for each stanza on the left margin of the page, giving you a guideline. If you find a later stanza seems more suited to be the start of your poem, you can just push it to the top with its following stanzas trailing, and you will still have the pattern intact.

Enjoy the sestina. Though it is a challenge don’t let it intimidate you. Consider it a game. If you achieve a successful sestina that is fine, but what is most important is you continue writing, sharpening your skills, learning each day more about your unique voice.
—
Matt Quinnhttp://poemblaze.wordpress.comhttp://poemblaze.tumblr.com

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49 thoughts on “FormForAll – Sestina”

thanks matt for explaining the sestina…i came upon quite a few on my poetry trails but yeah…they always seem to be a book with seven seals…and didn’t find the key yet to unwrap….let’s see if i’m bold enough to approach one…

Hey Matt’s at the bar and he’s the best to give advice I believe. I found this an excellent article on sestina and through Matt when I first posted mine, I realized I hadn’t written a sestina at all. I meant to have a new one for today but alas, nothing presented itself in the time I had to write. So I thought you might like seeing what it’s like to get the form wrong. That’s always useful too, for me. There’s an introductory note on my blog. Thanks for coming by today for FormForAll and enjoy!

patience….pssshhh….anyone here who would sell me some instant patience…? i’ll be sitting in the corner with a hat, sunglasses and black coat….paying with poetry…please burn this comment after reading….

Thank you Matt! A great article for a challenging form! Sestina – sounds female (in Hebrew nouns are either fem/or male) and it’s most definitely complicated like one… 😉
I hope I’m up to it. Need to “do my homework” first, as Tash said…
deb

thank you both, Gay and Matt! i really enjoyed learning about the sestina. i already have two other poems in process that i want to get posted so probably won’t get to participate, but wanted you to know i found this very interesting and frightening as i do not do well with rhymes. {smile}

I think this is a little too controlling and confusing for me. I don’t care for rules. But I look forward to reading the works of others in this form. Good luck to all those brave enough to tackle the sestina!

Thank you Matt, for the very comprehensive information on the sestina. I enjoyed looking up some of the references that you had offered. I had tried this form a few weeks ago–self-taught so watch out! It was very challenging but I would like to try it again–after some more recovery time! Hehe…

Great explanation and examples, especially yours, Matt, with it’s excellent choice of keywords. I’ve written three, each harder than the last, but satisfying as well. Writing a sestina is a true journey into form, and writing one that flows well and naturally is even harder. I have one more planned to finish my series, and I alternately look forward to writing it and dreading it deeply. ;_) Thanks for hosting and encouraging people to stretch their skills and be ambitious–that’s how we grow.

Interesting article with some good tips. I’m still in the throes of writing a long, a very long, narrative fairy story poem. So this is one from the vaults. I wouldn’t start from there now as the Irish say but it’s an interesting assignment from my university creative writing course. I would echo what has been said re post your poems in a months time. I found this form takes a lot milling over and needing to rest in a drawer as it goes through various drafts.

Matt, thanks for presenting the Sestina. I enjoy the challenge of this form that demands a bit of discipline. I confess this is an older one, but it makes me want to do another. Your “Strata” is amazing. Victoria

Thank you Matt and thank you Gay for bringing Matt and his wonderful intro of the Sestina up to the bar…. appears to be a very fascinating challenge… one that will take a bit of time (that unfortunately I don’t have today). Will look to maybe having one ready for the next time. Your post today definitely leaves me eager to give it a whirl sometime soon. Look forward to browsing through the others with my disection tools. smiles.

This is my first ever attempt at writing a Sestina and i must say i enjoyed it a lot. It’s very tough to do and really took a lot of my patience but i am glad because somehow i was able to make it. What an experience – thank you Miss Gay for bringing this form to us all and thank you Matt for your effort and time in putting up this one. Now, mine’s up after almost half a day of writing it.. Hope to see some helpful feedbacks for further improvements. Have a nice day to all!(:

Matt, I love your sestina, especially the stanza enjambent of bed – rock! To me, the key to a successful sestina is to choose key words (excuse the pun) which have a variety of homonyms, and can be adapted as verb/nown/adjective etc. I have already posted my ‘best’ sestina here, so today I will post my worst, to give a little light relief. The key words are all anagrams of each other! http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/a-silly-sestina/

I think, having read yours and others on here that it’s time I took my tongue out of my cheek and wrote another!

This is my first ever attempt at writing a Sestina and i must say i enjoyed it a lot. It’s very tough to do and really took a lot of my patience but i am glad because somehow i was able to make it. What an experience – thank you Miss Gay for bringing this form to us all and thank you Matt for your effort and time in putting up this one. Now, mine’s up after almost half a day of writing it.. Hope to see some helpful feedbacks for further improvements. Have a nice day to all!(:

I have to pass on this one. You did a great job explaining this form. And these forms always seems to read beautifully, but fact is, for whatever reason, I can’t write one, fast anyway. And I do not have ANY in my storage. I’ve never finished one. I have a bazillion half finished, but I have lost the mood on finishing what ever I was trying to say on those. I am going to, write a sestina, it’s a goal of mine, but it ain’t happenin’ today:)
I’ll try to read a few when I get back home. But I’ll be thinking of everyone. AND I’m not grumbling. See you-all later. I’ll be soaking up some rays and splshing around in non- hurricane threatning waters.

Wow I think that is the most difficult form I have every run through. I am glad I completed it though, sestina a form i have always hid from like a little girl 😉 thanks for hosting, looking forward to reading all the brilliance!

Thank you for the excellent introduction and wonderful example of this most challenging form. Attempting a sestina will be a good way to keep the mind off the weather, but I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to post it…

I am so grateful to everyone who linked sestinas for this article. Such a challenging form and every one of you rose to it so well. Some of the sestinas linked are among the best I have ever read. Such a great variety of topics, well explored, and in many cases with added challenges such as rhyme, meter and anacrostics! Wow. So impressed with the great talent and creativity presented here. Thank you! Gay